Echo Warrens
They reached the mouth of the Echo Warrens at dusk.
A windless, breathless place, the valley was carved not by time or water—but by memory, etched raw into the stone by centuries of whispered truths and buried guilt. The entrance yawned wide like a broken promise, its walls streaked with silver-veined quartz that pulsed with faint, rhythmic light—like the beating of a forgotten heart.
"This place hates the living," Maerai said grimly. "And adores liars."
"Perfect," Rien muttered. "We're full of both."
They entered with torches lit, though the light seemed to bend wrong in the gloom. Sound echoed strangely here—Kaelen's footsteps repeated twice, then once more in a tone that didn't match his stride.
Vel frowned. "Is that my laugh I just heard?"
Maerai didn't answer. She was too busy binding charms of iron and truth-thread around her wrists.
"The Warrens hear what you've buried," she said. "And they wear it like a mask. Don't trust the voices. Don't chase the shadows. And whatever you do—don't answer to a name that isn't yours."
The Weight of Unspoken Things
Rien walked ahead, flame-thread glimmering faintly at her wrist, not enough to light the path but enough to keep the worst illusions at bay.
Still, they came.
A flicker of her mother's face on a wall of stone. A child's laughter twisted to match the cadence of her brother's last breath. A door, half-carved into the rock, shaped like the one from her childhood home—complete with the scratch marks where she and her brother had kept tally of the days until spring.
She didn't stop.
Behind her, Kaelen murmured a prayer—not to any god, but to the truth.
"Let the thread hold. Let the flame remember. Let the lie pass like smoke."
Lira stumbled once, her hand bracing against a cold stone that hissed a memory back at her—a memory of love lost, returned, and betrayed. She gritted her teeth and walked on.
The farther they went, the more the air thickened. Like grief.
The Vault of Names
At the heart of the Warren stood a hall that did not end.
A tunnel lined with mirrors—each holding a face from someone's past. But the glass did not reflect the present. Only regret.
One by one, the rebels slowed.
Vel froze before an image of his father—dead before Vel could ever reconcile the silence between them.
Maerai turned from the reflection of a friend she'd once let die for a greater cause.
Kaelen stood before a younger version of himself, bright-eyed and unblooded, standing with a boy who bore a crown of ice.
"This place is cruel," he whispered.
"Cruel," Rien agreed, "but honest."
She moved down the corridor, toward the final mirror.
And there—
"Mother," she breathed.
The image wasn't false.
This one moved.
Not a memory, but a tether. A crack in the Seamwright's work.
A woman with fire-lit eyes and storm-dark hair stood in a dimly lit room, staring at her reflection as if sensing something on the other side.
"Elyra," Rien whispered. "That was your name."
The woman in the mirror blinked. For a heartbeat, her lips parted.
"Rien?"
The others stepped back, holding their breath.
But the mirror shattered.
With a scream of glass and wind and unmade thread, the vision cracked and fell away—leaving behind not reflection, but a doorway.
And from within it: silence. Cold. Thick.
Then—
A voice.
"Come and claim her, daughter of flame."
The Thread Pulls Tighter
The party stood at the threshold.
Kaelen reached for Rien's arm. "This might be a trap."
"It is a trap," she said. "But it's also the only door he didn't seal. Which means something's in there he couldn't fully rewrite. Something of her."
Maerai stepped beside her. "If we go in, we go blind. The truth won't help us. Only faith."
"Not faith," Rien said. "Memory. I remember her voice. I remember the way she held me when the world felt like it would break. That's how I find her."
She looked at each of them.
"If I lose myself in there… remind me who I am."
Without another word, she stepped through.
The others followed.
And the doorway sealed behind them with a sound like a breath being held.